Those Who Wait (Formula 1 - Daniel Ricciardo)

12... The boy with the dragon tattoo

It was now 2 weeks since the Monaco Grand Prix and it had been rather eventful.

At first my diary had been crammed with the usual training slots and press events, but then had come an anomaly. I had been called to Red Bull HQ for a meeting with everyone I never wanted to see in one meeting room unless it was about signing a contract.

This meeting had certainly not been about a contract, but whether I should drive in the Canadian Grand Prix, or in fact at all. I'd sat around the table with engineers Gianpiero and Rocky, as well as Christian, team advisor Helmut Marko and Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz.

They'd outlined my racing ability, my previous results and then finally had come to the real topic on the table, my relationship with Dan. In the end they decided my driving ability wasn't hindered by my relationship and that it could be an asset to the team in the long run. But underneath all of this they also had a Red Bull driver under contract, now fit and healthy and able to return to racing. Thus, after much deliberation Danill Kvyat was given back his seat for the Canadian and Austrian Grand Prix', and I was sent back to my stool at the back of the garage.

And that's exactly where I was sat for every session of the Canadian Grand Prix, not driving the car once all weekend. It well and truly sucked.

*

Saturday had begun well with a quick gym session with Jen, before Millie took over the job of distracting me from the fact I wasn't going to be starting this Grand Prix.

"Ok, so today we have a lot of press, and I wanted you to look over the campaign video we shot last week before I give it the go ahead," Millie said as she rushed about the hotel room, her phone clutched between her fingertips.

This was supposedly my hotel room, but seeing as it was now becoming increasingly uncommon for Dan and I to spend a night apart, I'd given Jen and Millie the option of upgrading to the much larger room.

"Was that for the 'This girl can' thing?" I asked, flopping back across one of the beds and closing my eyes.

"Yes, now can you watch it quickly while I grab the rest of my things, we need to leave in 5!" I felt a t-shirt hit my face, opening my eyes and sitting up to see her laptop perched on the desk in front of me, the video ready for me to press play.

I watched as Millie continued to bustle around the room, smiling at the cinematography style and the shots they'd chosen to piece together. It had began with me running down the track in my workout kit, gradually changing to become me walking down it in my race suit, helmet in hand, before finally ending with the car speeding down the track and doing donuts.

"It looks good," I said, looking up to see Millie stood waiting with her large rucksack at the ready.

"Good I'll email them back later, now lets go!" she chivvied me out of the door, directing me downstairs to pick up the car we would be taking to the circuit.

*

Once at the circuit the press attention was truly ridiculous. With most of the other drivers preparing to go out on track for the third free practice session of the weekend, they're attention was pointed towards the one available driver for interview. Me.

To begin with every single network, from every single country, wanted to know why I wasn't driving, and then from then on the questions became increasingly varied. The Canadians wanted to know if I thought Red Bull had a chance at a win again, the British wanted to know if I was driving in Silverstone and one German reporter even asked if I was pregnant. If Millie hadn't already been trying to get us away before that, she definitely found us a quick escape once I'd bluntly replied with 'definitely not'.